Obama Intel Team Intel

21 Nov 2008

The Obama administration’s intelligence team is taking shape. So far, we've got the names of five people tapped for the transition team.

Top of the list from our intelligence community source is John Brennan, an early supporter of Obama's and one of his foreign policy advisors. Brennan's resume stands rock solid. He was director of the National Counterterrorism Center and is the chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a Washington advocacy group for the intelligence community.

Next on the list was retired Army Maj. Gen. Bob Harding, former director of operations at the Defense Intelligence Agency and deputy to the Army's Chief of Intelligence. He is now head of his own firm, Harding Security Associates.

Women figure prominently on the Obama list. Jami Miscik, is being touted as the co-leader -- with Brennan -- of the intel transition team. The former deputy director for intelligence at CIA, she is now global head of sovereign risk at Lehman Brothers. Miscik led the agency's analysts when they produced the infamous National Intelligence Estimate concluding that Saddam Hussein's Iraq probably possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Another woman, Jennifer Sims, is on the list. Sims was the State Department's first coordinator for intelligence resources (1998-2001) and planning and is now Georgetown University's highly regarded director of intelligence studies. Before working at the State Department, Sims was a professional staff member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Committee and an aide to former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.).

The last name we've got is that of Caryn Wagner, budget director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She was chief financial officer for the Director of National Intelligence and she serves on the board with Brennan at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.